The Biggest Bluff

And yes, it is frustrating. I do want answers. I do want a guide for what to do with my pocket tens from the small blind following a raise from under the gun and a re‑raise from the hijack. Enough philosophy, I want to yell. Give me certainty! Tell me if I’m supposed to call or shove or fold. Tell me if I’m making a big mistake! But the Virgil buddha will not be shaken. And I’m left with that frustrating not-quite-rage that, weeks later, I miraculously find coalesced into knowledge. Poker is all about comfort with uncertainty, after all. Only I didn’t quite realize it wasn’t just uncertainty about the outcome of the cards. It’s uncertainty about the “right” thing to do. The only certain thing is your thinking.

A number of years ago, Erik heard about a seminar led by Mike Caro. Caro is famous for his book on tells—live, in‑the-moment reads of others at the table. “He’s a pretty eccentric guy,” Erik says. “And he’s walking around the stage and starts off by saying, ‘What is the object of poker?’” I nod in agreement. A question I’ve been asking myself frequently.

Erik continues, “Somebody says, ‘Winning money.’ He says, ‘No.’ Somebody else says, ‘Winning a lot of pots.’ ‘No.’ He says, ‘The object of poker is making good decisions.’ I think that’s a really good way to look at poker.”

He thinks for a bit. “When you lose because of the run of the cards, that feels fine. It’s not a big deal. It’s much more painful if you lose because you made a bad decision or a mistake.”

He won’t tell me how to play a hand not because he’s being mean but because that answer comes at the expense of the ability to make a decision. Of the discipline to think through everything for myself, on my own. All he can give me are the tools. The building blocks of thoughts. I’m the one who has to find the way through.

It may make me frustrated in the short term. But at least I won’t be in any danger of falling into the egg-white trap in an area I know nothing about. If you’re skeptical of any prescriptive advice to begin with, if “less certainty, more inquiry” is your guiding light, not only will you listen; you will adjust. You will grow. And if that’s not self-awareness and self-discipline, I don’t know what is.

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